The main ceremony took place in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes and began at noon with the sounding of sirens in remembrance of the participants of the uprising. Representatives of Jewish organizations, veterans, the Righteous Among the Nations, as well as delegates from the Chancellery of the President, the Chancellery of the Prime Minister, the Senate, the Seym, the Mayor of Warsaw and Warsaw residents gathered at the monument.
During the ceremony, the account of Symcha Ratajzer-Rotem “ Kazik” - a member of the Jewish Combat Organization and participant of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - was recalled:
The only thing we could do in that situation was to stand up to the Germans, knowing that death awaited us. That was the one sure thing. We had no illusions, the thought that we might survive never even crossed our minds. No one even dreamed of it, neither at the beginning of the uprising, nor later. To the Germans - a Jew was defenseless - you could do whatever you wanted with him.
Later, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich said a prayer, and wreaths were laid in tribute to the fallen heroes of the uprising. The Institute of National Remembrance was represented by Deputy President Prof. Karol Polejowski.
The ceremony was organized by the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland.
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On 19 April 1943, fighters from the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) put up armed resistance to German troops who were liquidating the ghetto. It was the last act of the tragedy of Warsaw's Jews, who were being transported to Treblinka to be exterminated . The uprising lasted less than a month, and its tragic epilogue was the blowing up of the Great Synagogue in Tłomackie Street by the Germans on 16 May 1943. It was then that SS General Jürgen Stroop, commanding the operation of suppressing the uprising - the author of a report documenting the course of the fighting in the ghetto, was able to announce that "the Jewish quarter in Warsaw no longer exists."
Read more:
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 19 April – 16 May 1943
The tragedy of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto - photographs from the IPN’s Archive collection